Shopping carts have been in use since the mid 1930s when Sylvan Goldman obtained the first shopping cart patent on Mar. 15, 1938. Shopping carts are now widely used in almost every country now and continue to grow in popularity due to their many desirable features. However, unlike many other consumer products, the shopping cart has not evolved substantially to adjust to the needs of the modern day consumer shopper. As a first example, shopping carts have failed to evolve for the modern shopper who shops at bulk discount store chains. Shopping at such chains becomes a chore when unloading the groceries into the car due to the fact that many of these bulk shopping chains do not provide bags in the store in order to keep costs low for the shopper. Another example is that prior art shopping carts are not normally sold to consumers and are left in parking lots with large variations in cleanliness and repair of carts. Yet another example is that shopping carts are normally provided at fixed heights and taller and shorter shoppers must deal with the ergonomic difficulties from the fixed height cart designs of prior art. Finally, for urban shoppers, many either are forced to shop in small quantities which they carry by hand back to their city residence or they improvise by using small sized collapsible carts which once again are limited in volume as compared with shopping carts of prior art. Indeed, there is a need to provide a modern shopping cart that can better satisfy these aforementioned limitations of the modern day shopper.
Although there have been many patents issued over the last few decades that have provided collapsible shopping carts for storage in cars, they do not have many additional other features desirable to the modern shopper. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 8,567,809 Collapsible Shopping Cart issued to White discloses a collapsible shopping cart having detachable shopping baskets. Although White's cart does have some advantages over the prior art, it does not offer any adjustability in height and by design cannot hold a large volume of shopping items typical of modern bulk shopping. U.S. Pat. No. 8,408,581 Collapsible Shopping Cart Device issued to Hunter discloses a collapsible shopping cart that also contains a collapsible open mesh basket large enough to be of use to the modern bulk shopper. However, Hunter's cart also does not allow for height adjustment and also does not have detachable shopping bags for easier transport of items once loaded into the car.
U.S. Pat. No. 8,075,016 Shopping Cart issued to Silberberg discloses a collapsible shopping cart having retractable legs which would allow the cart to be loaded into a vehicle with the entire contents remaining inside the shopping cart basket. Although Silberberg's cart would not require the shopper to unload items into the car, when the car arrives at home there is no longer any advantage as the basket design of Silberberg's cart lacks compartmentalization and would therefore rely on shoppers to use their own bags during shopping which is atypical of many modern bulk shopping chains. U.S. Pat. No. 6,328,329 Collapsible Shopping Cart with Removable Mesh Basket issued to Smith discloses a collapsible shopping cart having a single mesh basket which is also removable from the cart. Although Smith's cart would allow the shopper to carry the basket into the home directly from the car, it is still limited in that the weight of a typical large bulk shopping trip would require at least two people of average strength to carry into the home. Furthermore, Smith's cart as shown is of a low height and would have to be carried into the car by at least two people of average strength.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,042,128 Collapsible Shopping Cart issued to Dinkins discloses a collapsible cart having a main basket made of a web material for placing shopping items into one or more nested tub containers. Although Dinkins' cart does utilize multiple detachable baskets, it also has no height adjustment and its design would not allow for easy loading into the truck of a typical modern car or sports utility vehicle. U.S. Pat. No. 5,575,605 Elevatable Shopping Cart issued to Fisher discloses a collapsible shopping cart that does have height adjustment capability by either a hand crank mechanism or a hydraulic cylinder. Although Fisher's cart offers a major ergonomic improvement over typical fixed height carts of prior art, it lacks the other features to be disclosed in the present invention such as detachable baskets, and easy loading of the full cart into a car. Furthermore, Fisher's methods of adjusting the height would be difficult for older shoppers due to the hand strength required to use a hand crank and would not be allowed in many stores because many hydraulic cylinders are prone to leaks over time and the hydraulic oil residue would provide hazards to the store such as slipping on oil residue or potential product contamination from leaked hydraulic oil.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,531,366 Carry Out Caddy for Shopping Carts issued to Strom discloses a collapsible shopping cart having reusable and fully collapsible shopping bags that are further compartmentalized for easy unloading. Although Strom's cart would complement today's environmentally conscientious shoppers as it uses reusable collapsible bags, it is clearly not designed to load easily into a car or sport utility vehicle trunk as it does not allow height adjustment. Strom's caddy is more of an accessory invention to a shopping cart. As a final example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,765,646 Collapsible Shopping Cart issued to Cheng discloses a collapsible shopping cart having a base support to enable carrying heavy loads without deforming. However, Cheng's cart, once again, also lacks other desirable features to the modern bulk shopper such as height adjustment, ease of loading into car trunks and detachable baskets.
Clearly, the collapsible cart inventions of prior art disclosed here do not fully satisfy all of the features of the present invention which are easy loading of the full cart into the trunk of a vehicle while still fully loaded, adjustable height to provide for a wide range of shopper heights, detachable and reusable mesh bags to allow easy transport of bulk shopping items into both suburban and urban residences by shoppers of all age groups and genders.